


Impression

by slighter_writer



Category: Choices - Fandom, Choices - Stories you play, Endless Summer (Visual Novel), Pixelberry, PlayChoices
Genre: And yes some of it's from Jake, F/M, T just for a little bit of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slighter_writer/pseuds/slighter_writer
Summary: You don’t think much of him when you see him for the first time.





	Impression

You see him for the first time in the morning, on the way to class.

The need for coffee overrules having to be on time for Communications 101. You spent last night and the night before going over the entire student directory for what you’re sure is the fifteenth time. You need _triple_ your usual amount of caffeine to start the day. You were never much of a morning person, and the line of people in front of you isn’t helping your mood. Neither is the mammoth of a man in front on you loudly guffawing into his phone, nor the barista chatting up someone behind you while he’s taking your order.

When you get your drink, you take a sip and that’s the _last fucking straw_.

“This is cold,” you deadpan at the barista.

“Uh, _no_ it’s not,” he chuckles condescendingly. “Next!”

“How would you know? You were too busy flirting with the girl behind me to notice.”

You’re pleased that your glare and tone wipes the dumb smile off his face, and also at the silence coming from behind. “Look, there’s gotta be some mistake, ‘cause I didn’t get your coffee cold-”

The coffee cup is slammed on the counter and pushed towards him. The barista feels the cup, and his eyes almost pop out of the sockets.

“I paid you for a large _hot_ coffee,” You glower at him. “Is that simple enough to understand?”

“Erm,” he pales under your glare. “Yeah, r-right away ma’am!”

When your coffee comes steaming hot, you exit the café without a word.

Your pace is even and calm as you feel no urge to hurry. The worst you’ll get for being late are a few annoyed stares when you walk into the classroom. You doubt you’re missing anything important, and it’s not even a difficult class. The plan is to stay at Hartfeld only until you find the son of your mother’s killer, so why take not take the easier classes?

You recognize a few people as you walk through campus; most of them ignore you and you them. A face is rarely forgotten in your mind, but there are only a few names you could put to those faces. You have no reason to get to know anyone who isn’t your target, and it’s as simple as that.

No one makes any effort to get to know you either. What most of the other students think of you isn’t much of a mystery; you hear what they say about you behind your back. It’s for the better; if they’re afraid of you then they’re less likely to get in your way, and you tell yourself this to smother the small pang of hurt you’d feel. Every time you think about doing something a normal college student would do, something you’d think you’d enjoy, you remind yourself that you didn’t come here to make friends or indulge in frivolities.

You don’t think much of him when you see him for the first time. Hell, the only reason you notice him is because of the ridiculous amount of attention he draws to himself. A minute from the café, your path brings you towards a student your age waving into a crowd as if trying to get someone’s attention. Only a few seconds in, he’s moved on to jumping up and down and waving his arms like a complete moron.

“ _Hey! Diego! Over here!_ ” He’s visibly frustrated. A shorter man in a purple shirt, Diego you guess, is almost invisible in the horde of students he walks out from. He looks embarrassed enough for the both of them.

“Uh, hey Taylor,” he grins nervously and glances at everyone who’s staring. “Was the _Bring It On_ routine really necessary?”

“Well you didn’t hear me at first, so yeah, it was. Plus, the only other way to get your attention in a crowd is to shout out ‘movie marathon with free junk food at my place’, but that would pretty much work for like… _every_ college student in existence.”

“Heh, point taken,” Diego laughs. “Maybe next time a blow-horn would be better. And you know, more dignifying.”

“Psh,” his annoyance instantly melts into a carefree smirk. “Dignity’s for losers!”

_That mentality explains a lot._

“Well in that case, you could go all out and we’ll find you a skirt and pom-poms.”

“Hm, I _would_ look good in anything.”

“Come on, Professor Vasques is gonna do a reenactment of _The Faculty_ on us if we’re late.”

You don’t slow your pace, and you lose wind of the conversation when you were too far away to hear.

That was the first time you saw him, and you didn’t think much of him at all.

 

* * *

 

The next time you see him, and he sees you, is on the plane.

You get a chance too good to pass up; going to Rourke’s privately owned island and being able to get close to him, close enough to _kill_ him. You’re close to finding Rourke’s son, narrowing the possibilities to just a few students. But you enter the contest anyway, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

You don’t expect a miracle when you enter.

The minute you get the message in your student email telling you to pack your bags, you spend every hour preparing. You go to classes just enough to avoid drawing suspicion, but ignore your classwork entirely. Your thoughts go on a repeated loop of everything your uncle told you, every strategy he taught and every piece of advice he gave. The time you spend pummeling the punching bag at the Hartfeld gym doubles.

You fill your bags with all the survival supplies you can get away with bringing on a plane. A creep of nostalgia forms in your gut against your will. You know that this is likely the last time you’d see your dorm, or _Hartfeld_ for that matter. You can’t let these feelings get in the way of your mission, which is why you don’t take one last walk across campus and why you force yourself not to call your uncle. Complete focus is all you need.

On the day of the flight, you come early to secure a seat in the very back of the plane, having the double benefit of avoiding attention and keeping an eye on everyone.

“Thank you everyone, and may I say that we’re so glad to have you on board!” Lila, the far-too-happy woman in a uniform that signifies her as the tour guide, announces cheerily. “On behalf of Rourke International, I’d like to wish you all a pleasant-”

“You guys leave yet?” You see him poking his head through the airplane door almost comically.

“Oh!” Lila looks delighted. “Taylor! Perfect timing! You cut it close, but I guess we’ll be able to depart on schedule after all!”

“Well,” Aleister scoffs. “Give this one an award for punctuality, why don’t you?”

“What’re ya tryin’ to do man, hold up the trip?!” Craig, whose name you only know because you two share a sociology class, hollers.

“Well on the bright side, this is the earliest I’ve ever been late,” He chuckles, making his way over to the seat next to Diego.

_Weird luck that they’d come on the trip together_ , you think and leave it at that.

“Hey there, happy lil campers,” comes a voice from the speakers as the plane begins moving into the runway. “This is your pilot, Jake, speaking. Welcome aboard to-La Huerta-or-bust airlines. Behave, and we’ll try to hold the ‘or-bust’ part. To operate your seatbelt…well, if you don’t know how to work a seatbelt at this point in your life, then there’s no hope for you. In the event of an emergency, please resist the urge to scream your ragged asses off for a few seconds and-”

“Jake!” Lila calls out. “What did we say about cursing?!”

“Anyways, thank you for flying with us, blah-blah-blah, and _bye_.”

The flight is uneventful, and behind your calm, you’re ready to strike in half a second. You’re flying into enemy territory; from this minute on, you have to expect danger at every turn.

You see Taylor go into the cockpit after bumping into the tall man who was sitting next to Craig and you feel turbulence hit barely a minute later. The blue horizon suddenly goes dark as night, earning shock and fear from everyone else. You stay calm as the aircraft rocks like a ship in tidal waves. This isn’t the worst you’ve been through. When everyone’s commotion grows louder as orange lightning cracks through the sky, Lila and the tall man Taylor bumped into try and fail to keep some semblance of order.

_Breathe in, breathe out,_ your mind tells you down instinctively, but the orange lightning doesn’t faze you. Nothing really does anymore.

Taylor is standing on the threshold to the cockpit, bracing himself from falling over. You can see him watch you from the corner of your eye as your own gaze moves from the other students to the lightning around the plane. His mouth is hanging open and his eyes are as wide as dinner plates. Taylor is obviously afraid. But to his credit, he doesn’t seem to be freaking out.

Lila tells him to find a seat, and Taylor tumbles into the seat next to the trembling redhead, making her laugh and forget her previous fear with bad jokes. You’re shocked that you find yourself staring at him with a weird feeling of curiosity. _First he was able to stay calm, even if just a little bit,_ you think. _And now he’s going out of his way to make someone else feel better_. Aleister calls him out and says this is no time for jokes, but you can hear a few faint snickers and laughs join in.

The blue of the sky returns, and the heavyset passenger with long hair could be heard whooping as the island came into view.

“Get a good look now,” Jake calls out from the cockpit. “‘Cause we’re coming in fast!”

You see the island through the clouds. While everyone else gasps in awe, your knuckles turn white in a fist.

_I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch._

 

* * *

 

After the plane lands, you’re the last to get off. Going through the exit, you see Taylor and Jake laugh about something you can’t quite hear, the latter ending up shouting for someone named Carlos. Grace is going on to nobody in particular about exotic flora and fauna while Craig groans at her rambling. The redhead is practically jumping up and down in excitement. Taylor finds conversation with the large man he bumped into on the plane and says something to the snobby-looking woman who goes from snapping at him angrily to smiling as though the two just became friends.

You’re getting the one bag you checked when you see Taylor bend down to pick up… _a tranquilizer dart?_

“The vial’s almost empty,” You hear Diego faintly at the distance you’re at. “It must’ve hit its target.”

_What would they be using a tranq gun for,_ you think, _if they didn’t want to kill whatever they were shooting at?_

“Yeah,” Taylor’s eyes were fixed on the dart. “This is a pretty big dose too. Whatever they took down must’ve been huge.”

“You mean _if_ they took it down.” If the frightened look on Taylor’s face is any indication, he doesn’t find the humor in this as Diego does. You don’t either.

Taylor looks up, and he sees you looking at him. In a much lower voice, he asks Diego a question, who grins as if they just shared a joke. Taylor’s face stays serious as he says something else. You can catch the words “too many of us”, which seems to shock Diego.

He looks back at you, and your gazes lock as you stare at him back. Taylor doesn’t look away, but it’s obvious he wants to. You don’t give an inch while he looks like a deer in headlights.

Jake calling out for Lila causes you to look towards them and from the edge of your sight you see Taylor fiddling with the hem of his shirt awkwardly now that he’s free of the stare-down. The news that the entire airstrip was deserted takes everyone’s attention, but you keep glancing at Taylor, who takes Jake’s offer to go to the control tower with him.

You and a few others are led by Lila to the hotel. You stay in the back of the group like you did in the plane. The tall man Taylor bumped into, Sean, is politely listening to Grace as she talks animatedly about the rare animals and plants that grow in tropics. Aleister is quiet for the whole trek, and so are Diego and the woman with dyed hair and a leather jacket. She gives you a suspicious look when she sees you purposefully behind everyone, but says nothing and doesn’t look your way again.

Lila grandly welcomes them to the Celestial. The sight of the building earns a smile from everyone else, even the woman with dyed hair who was brooding since the moment you saw her get on the plane. You zone out from Lila’s speech about the hotel and you’re tenser than ever. You force yourself to be ready for anything, for a fight the second you walk through the doors or one bursting from them any moment.

It must be why you aren’t as shocked as the others when you see the hotel is empty.

Taylor, Jake, and everyone who went to the beach enter the hotel and add to the crowd of confused people. The snobby girl, Michelle, is hitting the bell on the front desk repeatedly while calling out for staff. Craig cheered like he couldn’t be happier, and the heavy long haired man walks couldn’t make his way towards the bar any faster.

You scoff at them quietly, only paying attention for the chance to slip away unnoticed and find answers for yourself. You’ve always been quicker on your own.

Hearing Taylor say that there must have been an “incident” causing an evacuation isn’t something you expect. Grace backs him up, and you’re actually a little impressed that at least a few people here have a bit of common sense.

Taylor asks where Lila is, and everyone follows him through the doors to find the tour guide.

_Now’s your chance._ You slip into a hallway as everyone is rushing. As you go deeper into the hotel, your mind briefly goes back to Taylor. You briefly think about how you first saw him, how easy it was to underestimate him based on that first impression.

Now, considering he kept his head through the storm and in the hotel, and showed that he was rather smart and perceptive, you’re actually worried that Taylor’s curiosity might make him suspicious of you and get him in your way.

The last thing you need right now is someone interfering with your mission, whether they mean to or not.

“He’s probably gonna be trouble,” you mutter.


End file.
